


puppet play

by zalzaires



Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, headcanons abound, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2020-10-12 07:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20560262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zalzaires/pseuds/zalzaires
Summary: starting a drabble collection for ffix. i mostly just write about kuja so hence the name.newest chapter: "and now for someone completely different"





	1. good morning, vivi

Years of preparation, and it came down to this: Kuja, sitting on an ornate couch in a locked room in his stately Treno home, a doll pulled partly into his lap and a needle and thread in his hands. Stitch after stitch, the moment of truth approached. By now he’d been working upon the inactive doll for long enough he was in that certain state of task flow where the action, in its repetition, has become completely thoughtless.  
  


For an unremarkable time his mind was as empty as the being forming in his hands. There was nothing but push and pull, the gleam on the needle, the soundless roar of a still room suppressed only by his motions.

The roar was what brought him back from the submerge. Uncomfortable with too much prying stillness, his mind began to wander, and he began to hum. A tune from a play, as always. He wasn’t even sure which.

Would it wake?

The knowledge of how to craft a vessel such as this had been with him since his own creation. Severely he doubted it to be a path he himself was ever meant to tread – rather, Kuja suspected his own maker had forgotten the secret of ‘life’ was one all Genomes were imbued with. An artifact left carelessly behind, when the decree of purpose shifted from vessel to angel.  
  
The basics of speech, the coordination to take one step, then another-- these were things Kuja had never learned, but knew. So too it was this.

It _would _wake.

Pierce. Turn. Pull.

The puppet tugged the string.


	2. somewhere in the cycle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dissidia duodecim fic, first person. it's a whole lot of kuja rambling at zidane. he's pretty much achieving zero catharsis here because of the nature of the cycle of battle. man does dissidia kuja have depression.

I think the most_ interesting _thing I ever learned about the Gaians is how their minds begin. At least to their own reckoning – did you know it starts gradually? Day upon day, their mind builds and builds like a curling coil… yet the tension pushes up only gradually. They unfurl!

…

Well, that’s not how it was for things like us, Zidane. Even you, who grew like a Gaian.. you were never an infant like them. I was watching on the day you could first answer Garland back.

I could barely believe that voice was coming out of one of us. In this _little baby monotone,_ you rattled off exactly how long it had been since your very first thought. I think it had been days. Even though you didn’t have your senses yet, you were awake – but deaf and blind as a kitten until that hour. And that was it – the very, very start of you. If you hadn’t lost your memory… well! You never forgot an instant of it, before then. Isn’t that an interesting thought?

…

Well, Zidane.

Do you want to know _better _what it’s like?

I don’t really care what your answer is. Just grin and bear with me. Think of it like a cultural education! Yet another _fascinating_ morsel of what it is you came from.

The first moment I was ‘alive,’ I knew how to move limbs I didn’t even have yet. I knew how to speak words I lacked the tongue to form. It was all part of me before my heart had ever stuttered a single beat. Oh, but the _kindness _of it was the thing I was, it didn’t know how to be afraid! It was absolutely ambivalent with the situation. It knew I was a Genome, it knew the shape of the body I was supposed to have… it knew the words of Terra. It knew our purpose as vessel.

From those very first moments.. I knew there was something deep in me that I was not the master of. This.. implicitness, I guess you could call it. The thing that taught me to speak and walk without ever teaching. The thing that put every little hair, nail, and organ into place.

My wish from the beginning was to become greater than that _thing._

Hm, well. I guess you know how that worked out for me. Like a cuff that closes closer the more you struggle, mostly I made the situation worse. O, destroyer! Woe betides him.

…

I hate it when you look at me like that. Why do you even listen to me? Don’t you have anything better to do with yourself,_ chosen _of light? What point is there in it for you? All I can do is kill time until it’s all over again – and even counting on that, there’s no end to it at all.

…

Well, Zidane. Have fun with your battles. And keep in mind.. perhaps forgetfulness can be a boon, after all.


	3. curtains, bookends, stars of the show

Years before the Prima Vista, Tantalus performed out of a traveling cart.

One day, the Genome Kuja, pronounced "failed" scourge of Gaia and the blueprint of the next, nascent Angel of Death, was trying to get his mind off of his troubles. As was his wont, he indulged himself in sitting down to take in a stage performance.

Something in the play’s content lodged deeply in his mind. The story’s primary arc revolved around a youthful hero who’d been a foundling. A revelation in the third act – the dread nemesis with whom he had squabbled throughout the story, in fact had been the very one who abandoned him as a child in the opening scene! The hero’s helpless, hapless fury was powerfully portrayed. The words were carved as clearly in his mind as if he had been reading along with the script in hand, and he spent the rest of the production sitting up in his seat, perched near the edge and with a gleam in his eye.

At the end, he clapped much longer than he had planned to.

…Yet even after a satisfyingly tragic conclusion, the tale refused to leave his mind.

It felt… perhaps, like a sign.

It felt. Like he couldn’t resist the allure of something he’d wanted desperately to do for four terrible years.

Kuja did not attend the next showing alone. Zidane, all of four years old, also sat in on the audience of Tantalus’ encore performance. The younger Genome was transfixed; after all, he’d never left Terra before, and then – ah, the spectacle of the theatre! Even if it was upon such an ignominious stage, Kuja did not fault him for being enthralled. It was the exact same play that had gripped_ him_ so intently, after all. If they would be forced to share so many other things, at least Zidane could share some of his taste.

And,

By curtain call,

As the cast took their bow,

And their spell of fascination broke upon the young boy,

Zidane’s companion had long disappeared.


	4. kuja, but as a horse girl movie protagonist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (the joke is that kuja is more like the stereotypical horse character in this situation.)
> 
> writing more drabbles lately thanks to my partner kara. this one is much more mellow and cute than my usual.

The lifespan of a dragon is measured primarily by decade, not year, and like a tree can be dated by layers evident in a specimen’s physiology. In a silver dragon, this is most easily done by examining the horns. The bare eye is perfectly suitable for the task… if you can get close enough.

With a hand absently petting its muzzle, standing up on his tiptoes to stare at the single, soaring horn jutting out from the middle of its head – Kuja was more than close enough.

The dragon Garland had presented him to was seven decades old, and could be called comfortably middle aged. It was more mellow and flew steadier than others in its flock, and vocalized infrequently. It reminded him in temper of those soulless Genomes who wandered, pointless, throughout Bran Bal. Perhaps his creator hoped such a calm creature would rub off on him…?

“It won’t work, you know,” he told the dragon, which looked down at him with guileless red eyes. “I won’t be mollified, by you or anyone else. If we are to work together, remember that first.”

It went _chuff_ through its nose, messing up his hair and immediately making him lurch reflexively away and start mopping up _disgusting__, droplets!_ off of himself. Uncaring, it set its head gently down on the ground beside him, and closed its eyes.


	5. a sunset at the forgotten continent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> every year, for no particular reason, kuja watches the solstice sunset off of a certain patch of coast.

Today was the solstice sunset, the one that came later in the year – the single longest sunset to annually occur. He had made himself a tradition to come on this day to one _particular _spot on the Forgotten Continent, far and away from any semblance of society. Here, where the decrepit ripples of dead Terra had most savagely imposed over the world. Alone left of Gaia that still thrived here were all wild, wily things -- some beastly ruminants, many reptiles, households worth of cats, cactuars, and scrub bush-- and the prize of them all, the corals, off the coast. The beautiful corals, piled like a mountain of bones.

He had flown in and disembarked on a dead plain, leaving the dragon to its own devices – it would come for him when he returned. They had a routine, after all, and he was simple to spot amid the barrens.

He preferred to walk the rest of the way. It was more exertion than he regularly cared to submit to, nowadays, but a tradition was a tradition, and it was one that was all and only his – one he had kept up with for... a good ten years now? Give or take. He didn’t actually remember at all how many times, unless he went through the trouble of doing math with other events, because when he thought about this day, what he was here for – the memory was nigh continuous.

A single, uninterrupted moment... that sometimes, to his pleasure, he was able to resume again. Eternity, in minutes. A perfect vision he would never allow to be tarnished.

Cracked dirt, crumbling brush, arid desiccation – the pathetic state of this continent was temporarily a boon. The marks of his past passage became easier to follow each year. He knew know where to step firmly, where to rush – the journey itself was almost fun. He knew he was close when the sound of waves against the jagged coast had grown into a bestial roar.

One day he will have carved it into a footpath, all by himself.

He crested the final hill and had to shield his eyes, after spending so long watching his feet. He settled into place quickly. Pulled his legs up to his chest, linked his hands wrapped comfortably around them. He could feel his unseen tail sweeping about, knocking around the loose dust. He’d need a bath an hour long, but it was already all worth it.

His solstice sunset had already began, and it glittered wondrously out upon the ocean. A perfect hem of outcroppings of rock to either side, and the crash of waves, droning so loud that he could lose to it all of his thoughts…

Never had he found a place more worthy of spending this sole, longest sunset of the year. The tensions of his position, the worries and intrigues of his plans… all of it melted away from his mind in slow pieces. They were like granules of sugar disappearing into water. 

Here was something that was all and only ever his, about no one higher, nothing greater than he.

A young man sat on a patch of dirt, drinking in the minute changes of the sky, the growing chill of the air and the wind… tasting salt-ridden air, thinking of nothing but his senses. Finally, stiff and shivering a little in the early night, he unfurled, stretched with a little pain, and began to slink home.


	6. and now for someone completely different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little story about eiko written for an rp application, set postgame.

No matter how many times Cid protested that "actually, this is a regency, you know!", Eiko was a princess. And there were two major things she knew about princesses--

"EIKO!! Get DOWN from there! What are you DOING!?" Cid was hopping ineffectually in place below, which looked even funnier on a grown man than it did back when he was a frog, or even when he was an Oglop.

_ONE,_ Eiko knew that princesses had to have princess LESSONS. Their schedules were just absolutely jam-packed with every dainty princess activity you could think of, and also a lot of boring stuff that made them want to stare longingly out the window at the beautiful, wonderful, bird-song-filled, _splendor-fiddly-umptious_ outside world, stretching on far beyond the horizon.

When Eiko had all too eagerly asked when she got to get tutored, her adoptive parents had been confused but relieved. Little Eiko, they were aware, was a girl not quite a wild child, but not quite acclimated to civilization, either, and the mending couple shared many profound talks about what her struggles would look like going forward... education being a large concern. They wasted no time in pouring her days chock full of things that might help her 'catch up,' as it were. She was certainly a well-read little girl, but there was a wide, wide difference between having a lot of notions about the world because of what you've read, and having experience within it.

"Noooo way! I'm out on promenade, baby! You'll see me tomorrow!"

Thing _TWO_ that Eiko knew about princesses is that they HATED to have to sit and listen to the rules all the time. Look at all the greats! The legends! The girls in the stories who ran away from it all, daring to be more! Heck, look at Garnet, even. She wasn't a princess anymore, but she sure did do a lot of escaping in her day. So too would she, Regent-Princess Eiko Carol-Fabool!

...or at least, she would, if the rooftop she had chosen to scamper off over hadn't turned out to be a dead end, facing nothing but a sheer drop down to the plains far below the lofty city of airships. Eiko sagged in disappointment, becoming a puddle of bouncy tulle (because princesses need princess dresses too, y'know).

"Aww....better luck next time, I guess." She shuffled her way across the roof back near the wall she'd climbed up, and sat down primly at just the right spot to avoid getting her cute trailing ribbons sitting in the drainpipe. "Okay, Cid!" she called down. "Go get a ladder. I'm ready for piano lessons, take three!"

"You little--! You!" Cid coughed harshly into his hand, holding back something that would probably be really colorful and interesting. Too bad. "You think you get to just go back to practicing like you never did a thing?! I'm not falling for that a second time!"

Eiko smiled down at him, sweet and doleful. Cid looked back at her with hard eyes, but they swiftly weakened, and he looked away and rubbed at his forehead.

"...I'll send for the ladder," he grumbled.


End file.
